The neurosurgeon wanted one more cat scan. The spot on the T-4 vertebrae was nagging at him. I walked next to Will who lay on the hospital gurney and we traveled through the beige hallways, down the delvator to a cramped space where I had to sit outside. Normall, I've asked to be in the room when Will is scanned. It's so claustrophobic for him to be slid in and out of that machine and so painful for him to lie on that hard surface. He's so think and vulnerable. I don't like to leave him with strangers. I'm just afraid someone will say something again to terrify him or react in some subtle way to the way he looks now. Just today, he looked in a mirror and pondered his appearance.  "I can hardly look at myself anymore". He is gaunt. His left eye is swollen shut. Wearing a patch over it is itchy and uncomfortable. His hair is thinning from the chemo. I can't love him more.  I told him what he sees in the mirror is not him. It's the cancer; that ugly, cruel bastard that's trying to take his identity away.  Will is still inside, fighting back. The person our friends and family love is still here. The beauty is in all the love that surrounds us.

The morning news opens with U.S. troops 20 miles outside of Baghdad. Will jokes that they were 20 miles outside of Baghdad last week.

The head of surgery came to see us in Will's hospital room. I am so tired from the worry and the overnight feedings---Chloe is only 6 weeks old. He asked why we wanted this operation. (Why?)   He pointed out that Will has a less than 4% chance of cure. Translation:  96 % chance of dying anyway.  Will looked at him and said today "Well, that's 4% more than I have right now.".  Will had pulled his hospital bed upright and I was half sitting, half lying down   next to him. Part of it was my fatigue. Part of it was to paint a personal portrait. Would the head of surgery at UCLA care that I love this man so much I wanted to sink in to the blankets with desire and hope?

He looked at us and for a moment I thought he was going to take the last shred of  my future away from me. "Okay, I'll authorize the operation".

The journalist in me took over. I lift my head off the hospital bed and asked "why?".

He looked grim. "Because you have the right attitude. Because you just had a baby. You have a lot to live for."

I walked happily in to Will's hospital room this morning only to find him looking terrified.

What happened?!

He said a young doctor had come in to his room earlier. When he told her the doctors decided they could operate, she apparently said to him "How can they operate? It's only palliative. The cancer is everywhere. I saw the scans."

She was young. Perhaps 26. Chinese. She there was a certainty in her expression and a blankness in her eyes behind her glasses. Her look screamed "The facts as stated, sir.". I rolled up to her in the hallway and I wanted to bite her head off.

You never take hope away from a cancer patient. Who the hell are YOU? Are you a cancer specialist? No? Oh! Opthomalogy! And that gives you a right to give a patient a death sentence? Are you God? No? Oh! Okay. Then stay the hell away from my husband. You. Do. Not. Speak. To. Him.

I woke up today to hear Will in front of the mirror screaming. He can't see out of his left eye.     I called Dr. K to tell him. He says to go immediately to UCLA's emergency room. He would meet us there. When we got there, Will was sent immediately to have a scan of his head. The tumor was now pressing on the optic nerve. Dr. K was contacting his colleagues. Could they operate to relieve the pressure. Could they operate with the hope of removing enough of the tumor to give us hope that Will could be saved? Could Will survive the operation?

It would involve at least 4 specialties------head and neck, orthopedics, opthamology and plastic surgery. That's four teams of surgeons, 20 doctors in all. Each of them would have to personally sign off on the viability of the radical procedure which would take 18 hours on the operating table.   They had to be sure the cancer had not spread to Will's brain or spine. That, although it was a Stage Four cancer and had spread to the bone, it was not yet systemic—in his blood and spreading invisibly to the naked eye. I would become Will's chief lobbiest. With breast pump in a black backpack, I would walk the halls and meet with the surgeons, pitch our personal worth as I would pitch a story idea to get on to World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. I would say that spot on the t-4 vertebrae was inconclusive. I would say none of the scans indicated any penetration into Will's brain and   I would have a neurosurgeon from Duke, someone featured on 60 Minutes weigh in. There are moments where I am so frenetic, either on the phone or meeting with Will's doctors that he would reach out to me and say "Come sit with me." I realize that by 'doing' I feel I will find a cure. That's how I can save this man.

One more call. One more meeting. See us as lives worth saving. Isn't that part of the criteria? Believe that this man should live.

I bumped in to Dr ____ outside the elevators. It was already 7pm and I needed to get home to see Chloe. He said—did you hear? Looks like the team's on board. Plastics (surgery) just signed off. They're on."   Oh my god. I could not believe it! I screamed and ran over to him, dropped my breast pump backpack and jumped in to his arms.

I called Clark and Vivian from the car. "They're going to operate!! It means they think he might, just might kick this thing!!" For the first time in 5 months, I have joy in my heart.

I drove home, and hugged Will's sister. I  called my mother, who in her usual way, sounded doubtful. I am going to sleep tonight not caring the baby will wake me up soon enough. I want to feel the edges of this fragment in my heart called happiness.

I know that Chloe is trying as hard as she can. She probably feels the stiffness in my left arm when I cradle her to my chest. Or my self conscious smile as I remember those scientific studies on depressed mothers and delayed language skills of their children.

I sing Happy Birthday to her because I don't know any nursery rhymes. Patrice emailed me the lyrics to "My Favorite Things" from the movie, the Sound of Music.

I get tricked up on the "girls in white dresses" verse. She is only calm when someone is talking to her. So I will walk her down the hallway, explaining fascinating things like white paint and stucco, wood trim and mirrors.  
Most often it's a choice for me to hold Will or hold Chloe. I want so much for someone to take the baby so I can just watch her from across the room.  Will I love her as much as I love her father?

There was a nurse at the Atlanta hospital where Chloe was born who encouraged me with the news that my body was producing extra red blood cells to boost my energy and immune system. This is nature's gift, something to get new mothers through the sleepless days and nights.

While I knew that the baby would need to eat every two hours, I didn't know that you would wake to the crying, spend 20 minutes breast feeding her, 10 minutes burping her and another 20 minutes trying to get back to sleep. All this to say I'm really waking up every hour all day and night. In the morning, it's literally a balancing act.

I lift Will out of bed and half carry him to the bath. Then I grab Chloe under one arm and wrap the other around Will's waist and help everyone upstairs to the main living quarters. I know Will is nervous I will drop him and he would fall head long down the hard wood stairs, but I told him I had the strength of two people these days. I imagined those women who find super powers to lift cars off trapped children. That is me.

We are staying at my friend, Adele's home in Hermosa Beach, California. She has a small apartment set up downstairs where we have a living area, bedroom and bath. Chloe's in a borrowed bassinet. There's no way to hang a mobile over it so we tied a mobile to a brick which sits on a side table with the dancing flowers draping over her bassinet.

We all have breakfast in the morning and then one of our friends or my Mom comes to babysit Chloe while I take Will to Chemo. I won't see her until the evenings, but I take my breast pump in its backpack with me. There is nothing more lonely or humbling than pumping breast milk in the bathroom at a cancer treatment center.

I called Jim Walton, the chairman of the CNN Newsgroup to give him an update. I was hysterical on the phone. I could hardly talk. I found myself weeping and saying over and again "I cannot live without this man. What am I going to do?"   Jim Walton is the epitomy of calm. He's famous for a certain look that is both warm and glacially private at the same time. I do not know him well at all but he has reached out to me. He wants to know what he can do. I am in such a state of despair, I don't know the answer.

The doctors at Emory told us the second line of treatment for Will's cancer would be a chemotherapy called Taxol or Taxotere which is used to treat at least five types of cancer, most commonly breast cancer. It's shown "some efficacy in head and neck cancers". Translation: It's a crap shoot but it's all we've got. Despite the death sentence Dr. F gave us, Will still had some statistics on his side. His odds of survivability if the Taxotere worked might be 20%.   We're down, but not out. We want to go home. Los Angeles. There is an oncologist at UCLA who is specializing in head and neck cancers. He at least, does not think Will is a lost cause.

But how to get us all there? A man dying of cancer, a Two week old baby. 75 year old mother in law and a 20 pound cat named Billy. I called Jim Walton back and asked if CNN could fly us home to Los Angeles. I would pay for the flight. I have no idea how much airfare is for three adults, an infant and a cat would cost. $12,000? $20,000?   I did not care. Will would not make it through Hartsfield International. Chloe's immune system is still too vulnerable.

Jim told me the plane would be ready whenever I wanted it. And no, I did not need to pay. Thank God.

I just got off the phone with Dr. Roy Sessions who operated on one of the CNN executives with a similar cancer.   Give me hope. Please tell me there's more to our story and that it doesn't end here.  He wanted me to read the tumor board's report. He quizzed me about the unidentifiable spot on Will's T-4 vertebrae. Emory did not conclude it was cancer. The report just noted a spot.   His lungs were clear. His liver was clear.  I was ticking through the medical report, telling myself to focus focus focus. When I'm on the anchor desk and news breaks and I don't know what will happen next, I tell myself to stay in the moment. One second at a time. It adds up to minutes. The minutes add up to hours. Time will pass and answers will come forth.

"Carol", he said:  It's not over until it's over. Send me the scans."

I ran over and kneeled by Will who was laying on the sofa. His arm was draped over his forehead and he stared out the window.   Will…let me tell you what Dr. Sessions said…"

When we pulled up to the valet at Emory, We could hardly walk. It's been less than two weeks since Chloe was born, but I was determined, despite stitches, to come to this appointment. Will's feet were numb---nerve damage from the Cisplatin. In time, they said his nerve endings would heal. We learned today, Will and I don't have much time left.

They took us to an exam room where the head nurse and Will's oncologist got straight to the point:  "The treatment did not work. The cancer has actually spread. The initial scans did show it regressed, but then it got stronger and broke through treatment. There's evidence it may be in your spinal cord. I'm sorry. You have 4-6 weeks to live. (pause) There is another chemotherapy that would strictly be palliative. Even if it worked, it would buy you another 4 months, maximum. If I were you, I would get my affairs in order, say what you need to say."

That was it. Word for word. Will was sitting, hunched over and defeated on the exam table. He had not even taken off his brown leather jacket. I was paralyzed, taking in the information and my heart was breaking at the sound of Will's plaintive "no" over and over again. Softly, "no. no. no".

I want to take the cancer and have it be mine. He would be the better parent, not I. Chloe would grow up with his smile and laugh. Telling his jokes. Sharing his passion for travel and politics. She could know me through stories from our friends who would lighten my workaholic nature and emphasize my professional success. But there was hardly in my mind a single, soulful, deep or penetrating thing about me as her mother. I was the incubator for a man who would love her so much better. Not more. Just better. I am the one who deserves to die. Not this man. Will would be an amazing father. I would be only as good a mother as I can. God was not giving me a pass on this. There has to be another way.

When we arrived home, my mother was standing in the foyer. She pressed her hands together in that posture of hope. I told her the cancer was back. I told her the doctors said Will was going to die. She did not reach out for me. She stood there and turned to Will, but could not find the words.

It rained this morning. My friend Jodi cried and said it was God's clearing the way for a fresh start. Will made it through the night to hold my hand and join the chorus of nurses yelling "push! Push!". There was a country music concert playing on the television in the hospital room. Country music. Rain. Georgia. If you asked Will and me where we would be when our future child was born, it would not even begin to describe last night.

Will's 5'11 inch frame is gaunt at 140 lbs. We are fighting to keep his weight there. I wonder why he's not gaining more, now that we're past the chemo and radiation. Next week he will have the full body pet scan we hope will show the tumor gone.

But that does not explain his fatigue or swelling around his face.

Sanjay, our medical correspondent tells me that the swelling could be from the fluid produced by a dying tumor. I cling to that hope. My cousin's husband, a surgeon says the same. Give us hope. Keep us together.

Will was up all night, and our little baby arrived at 4:43am. He went home to sleep. I'll never forget his sense of wonder when she came out, and then he ran to the bathroom to throw up. He returned to the room so embarrassed. The nurse thought it was just first time father jitters. He explained he had cancer. He looked so weary. I am so proud of him.

The march toward war with Iraq has officially begun, at least in my mind.

The United States and Britain expanded the scope of the no fly zone over Northern Iraq.

Will and I joked that three days ago, Saddam Hussein invited CIA inspectors for a holiday visit---to see for themselves he did not possess weapons of mass destruction. Not an offer the CIA is likely to take. Will and I wonder if our weapon of mass cell destruction is actually working. Chemotherapy is essentially a crap shoot. Cancer, scientists will tell you, can be clever and adapting. No matter how toxic the formulation, the cancer cell is so individual in nature, that they've seen chemo wash right through a cancer cell, like water, with no effect. Yet the toxic agents designed to target any fast multiplying cell will kill off hair and skin cells, while the cancer accelerates the patient's metabolism, consuming protein, such a muscle for a midday snack.
Will's lost 30 pounds. He's muscular, more stocky frame is now boyish and slender. His legs---are thin and bony. The head nurse tells me it's just the chemo. But I wonder if she meant to say—cancer.

There is no tree. No presents for each other. Will is so sick and I am so pregnant that we decided our love was gift enough this year. His sister sent two boxes from Wichita. We used to joke about how she would start combing through the catalogues in October to find things we didn't need---a plastic battery operated robot which could serve party drinks on a tray—that sort of thing.  But this year, it is quite different. The sentiment behind any present is fully felt.
 
EP: Have you ever felt that the family that once made you crazy, makes you more sane when  you need that love the most?

I am trying hard to work as if not pregnant. This is harder than it sounds. Today the producer asked me if I could make it to the "map room" two floors up during the 2 minute commercial break. Rick wanted me to interview one of our Generals while standing on a room size map of Iraq. I did not want to say no, so I huffed and puffed up two flights of stairs and pushed open the door of the studio where the map covered the floor. The General eyed me suspiciously. How was he going to make his point if my pregnant belly covered Baghdad? I am trying to keep my sense of humor and sanity.
Must meet Will at the treatment center after the show.

EP, how do you keep your sanity when you're not sure what's going to happen next?

"The pharmacist sent back the order to the chemo nurse. Apparently the formulation is so toxic, it was beyond a measure of human tolerance. Was the oncology order correct?
Yes it was. Cisplatin is so toxic, its chemical compounds are used to make mustard gas. And the chemo is not even intended to actually kill Will's cancer. Targeted radiation is his best hope. The Cisplatin is only meant to soften the tumor---beat it back, weaken it in to a state of submission so that the radiation can burn the tumor to death.
We are warned, because of the location of the tumor that the radiation may create blisters in Will's mouth and throat. He would need surgery to implant a feeding tube in to his stomach so that we would have the option of feeding him with a liquid protein diet directly in to his digestive system. The doctors say, outside of the cancer, Will is in perfect health. He's relatively young, in great physical shape and we'll all know we did the best we could. We're giving  him everything we have in the arsenal--our weapons of mass cellular destruction."
 
EP:  How do you know how hard to fight? How do you know when to give up? I still wrestle with that question nearly five years later.

"It is not easy to keep this secret at work. My show team does not know. I want a space where I can be cancer free. I want a place where I can go and cancer doesn't exist. I can focus on someone else's war. But I can feel the tears well up during the commercial breaks, stinging like little needles threatening to bleed the tv make up down my cheeks. Blink. Just blink. Will starts chemo Monday. I read the pamphlet on side effects. I have the 24 hour emergency number to the clinic. They say that covering the news is like joining the army;  a lifetime of boredom lived for sheer moments of terror.  It's not even so much the cancer that scares me. It's the wait,  the wonder, the heartbreak of seeing him so sick, but so brave. He took care of me all of our lives. Do I know how to take care of him? And how does that make him feel? When I ask, Will's eyes go soft and he just leans forward and hugs me. I breathe him in. Do you know what it's like to sit in a moment and inhale?  I remember the games I would play as a child. How long can you hold your breath before your head aches for the relief of exhaling?
When the baby moves, she snuggles. There are no sharp kicks to the ribs, just a rolling movement. Once, she ran her foot across the top of my ribs---a slow, sliding effort, like a caress under my heart. I can't imagine the life she will be born in to."
 
EP:  What would you do for the one you love? I chose to be hands on, but I have to tell you, it comes with a price. I had nightmares for two years of Will still being sick. When you are there, you create memories. Is there something to be said for just visiting during hospital hours?

"War is something that is part of our nature at CNN--war coverage that is. Already, we can feel the steady editorial foot beat toward a major conflict in the Gulf.

Today the British Foreign Secretary accused Iraq of unimaginable human rights abuses and claims that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. I want a weapon of  mass destruction—something so powerful and complete that we never have to think about cancer again.
The odds we were given were 60-40% chance of survivability---a mathematical formula that concludes the odds of surviving five years beyond treatment. I am angry tonight, so angry. I wonder if anger can seep in to the soul of our unborn child. One can weigh the crimes against humanity of a dictator like Saddam Hussein. I can sit dispassionately on the anchor desk, reciting facts, statistics. Or consider the odds of surviving in a war zone. But even on a battle field you have control. The odds are so much more in your favor. Even if someone were firing at point blank range with an automatic weapon, the odds are still favorable that he will miss.
Lots of bad shots in the world. Even more important, lots of bad equipment. Russian made ak 47's that litter the landscape in a warzone will jam or miss-fire.

With cancer, and a rare cancer at that, your odds lie in your own DNA. Science can only project averages. But none of us are average, are we? Each of us is equipped, or ill-equipped to fight off the thousands of abnormal cells that course through our bodies daily---with a crack immune system of white cells and lymph nodes and genetic coding that destroy the killer cells or keep them from multiplying. What quirk in our biology that allows some to live and others to die is still the great mystery. So we pray, We let our faith wash over us and lull us for seconds at a time, to make us believe that we are entitled to the miracle. No one has yet explained the spontaneous remissions---the people who get the cures, though science does not know why."
 
EP: Do you believe in miracles? Who gives them? Who gets them? Do you ever go in to that space where you think it's so unfair that THAT person gets the break. Why not me?

"I just started to cry hysterically. I am having a baby. Will can't die he just can't. He can't die. I can't stop saying it. I can't even remember what Jodi said.

I don't want anyone else to know at CNN. I don't want their pity. I just want this to go away."
 
EP, it's been nearly 5 years since I wrote that.  Do you ever try to keep something so intense a secret? Maybe it was my pride that kept me from sharing this at work. What would you do? For me, I somehow thought that cancer was a failure on my part. I would love to know what you think.

Dr Chen called us and asked us to come in today. It's a day before our appointment to get the catscan results. That alone told us we were not getting good news.

She brought us in to an exam room. Will was sitting to my left. I waddled and fell in to a chair. My feet are so swollen today. Dr. Chen introduces to two earnest looking "doctors'. They are residents. Dr. Chen looks grim. She took a breath. This is not cancer in the gum. It's a tumor that started in Will's left sinus that has grown in to the gum and his jawbone. Stage four a classification of tumor that has spread. There is no "Stage Five". This is as bad as it gets. I looked up at Dr. Chen  and she sobbed. A quick intake of breath and then I saw the stoic composure of a surgeon.  It's not good when your scan makes your surgeon cry.  I wonder for a moment why she would invite two residents to witness this? What sort of teaching moment was she aiming for? She shows us his scan. and I see a grey cloudy mass in the middle of Will's skull---his sinus cavity.   I could feel my heart stop. Can your heart actually stop? In the bone? Stage four? 40% chance of five year survivability. Only 30,000 people a year get this cancer? Aggressive radiation. Chemo? We should start right away.

Do everything we can. WHAT???!!! We started to cry. I was sobbing. Will and I leaned in to each other. The sliding doors open and a woman walks by. I only heard her. She whispered "Have faith." Have FAITH?

It's five in the morning and I've just woken up and can feel Will's warmth. He's sleeping in one of his soft old t-shirts. It's the kind with tiny holes---a shirt that is warm and comforting but starting to unravel just a little bit at a time. I called the control room where I knew Jodi was just about to start her show. It's one of the only benefits of having a best friend up at that hour. I knew the show was about to start, but I had to talk to her.

We are so relieved. Dr. Amy Chen says it's just in the gum. She's getting a cat-scan to see the entire area around the cancerous gum just to be sure.

 

Yeah, it's cancer, but she can cut it out.  I know. That sounds gross and insensitive. She told us Will would have to get a prosthetic. A fake gum essentially to replace the part she must surgically remove which is on his lower left side.   He'll have to go through rehab to learn to chew again. Will didn't like that. He's always been scared of…something. As if he's had a lifelong premonition of …I don't want to say. Do you ever feel that way? As if knowing that life will be short? You never want to say it out loud. People will think you're paranoid. I've always wondered if a passenger about to board a doomed flight hears a little voice telling him—don't go.

Dr Chen asked us what we planned to name the baby and told us about her two kids. One's name is "Maya". I like the name. Will does not.

But we end the day with a solution. Surgery. Prosthetic. Rehab. We can live with that.

Will's going to be a daddy.

We wait to get the catscan in cold, crowded, beige room down the hall.

It's been two hours. Sanjay called back. We have an appointment with a Dr. Chen tomorrow. I'm sure she'll tell us it's not such a big deal . The cancer is called "squamous cell carcinoma" It's in his gum. Will's been complaining for months about a toothache. The dentist thought his molar was infected. Will's childhood dentist had told him he would some day have problems in that part of his mouth (how would he know??!) so Will ignored it for the longest time, thinking it was his childhood dentist's prediction come true.

 

Will's been in antibiotics for what feels like months, but it didn't stop the pain. So finally, the dentist orders a biopsy of skin. Cancer. Squamous cell? Isn't that skin cancer? As in the kind you get from too much sun?

Thanksgiving is Thursday.

So happy. I am six months pregnant and have never felt so peaceful in all my life. We're jokingly calling her   "Flavia"---because we can't agree on a name.

My cell phone rang this afternoon. I saw it was Will, but let it go to voice mail. The burgers had just arrived and I was starved. Now I'm avoiding the truth of what happened next because I'm still numb from the news. I want to be telling someone else's story.

When I got in the car, I checked the message. Will sounded so scared. "I just came from the oral surgeon. It's cancer." I can still hear the short breath he took in and then a sob. "It's cancer."  I kept saying over and over, it's going to be alright. We're going to be fine. I'm coming home. Have you ever felt yourself outside your body? I felt removed, but so scared. I can still feel my hands tighten on the leather steering wheel.  My head was going numb. My fingers wound around the wheel. I felt like it was about to break off. This can't happen. This will be fine. We just get over this. We're having a baby. He's going to be fine.

I pulled up the driveway and he ran towards me and I just hugged and held him on the back patio.

They say more than a million people share this exact moment every year. Half of them will die. He can't die. He's got to be a father. He can't die. This can't be such a big deal. I called Sanjay at work. He's a brain surgeon at Emory.   Our appointment with the head and neck surgeon isn't for another WEEK. Can't live without answers. Must push."

To my EP readers: How do you find courage in the face of bad news? How has dealing with a cancer diagnosis tested your love? What are solutions to finding strength?